Newrez is a nautilus script that not only makes it easy to change screen resolution on the fly, it lets you specify a resolution higher than your display's physical dimensions! This means that a netbook with a screen that's 1024x600 can display a scaled 1280x800 or higher (limited only by your eyesight :-)

Newrez does NOT "over-drive" the actual hardware. Instead, it defines a higher-resolution display on the netbook's VGA port, and scales it to the LCD.

You are not restricted to "standard" resolutions. Values like 1100x730 or 1350x900 or even 1400x700 will work just fine (and a few-pixel adjustment automatically applied if needed). Setting to 'default' will return everything back to normal.

Newrez can also be run directly from the command line, as in "newrez 1280x800" or "newrez default". This makes it a simple matter to switch to create scripts or icons that set your most common resolutions, or to include resolution changes into other scripts or launchers.

REQUIRES:
xrandr (version 1.3 or higher)
zenity
bc
cvt

At present, this will not work if you use the vendor-supplied Nvidia or ATI driver.

If the laptop lid is closed and re-opened, you MAY find the the mouse is constrained to an area the size of the default resolution. This is caused by xrandr. Re-execute newrez to fix this.

Changelog:

Check my other scripts, too!
(VOTE!!)

0.1 - initial version
0.2 - minor cosmetic fix for older zenity versions
0.3 - when run, the "xrandr" command is saved in a 1-line script ~/newrez-devname-XXXX
0.4 - corrected parsing when multiple monitors are detected
0.5 - a gnome-panel launcher icon can be created automatically
0.6 - better panel icon creation
0.7 - much more thorough testing to ensure proper versions of xrandr and gnome-panel-add
0.8 - Added "newrez-v" which is an entirely different approach to compensate for "constrained mouse" issue in latest xrandr. newrez-v starts a vncserver at a higher resolution and then starts a vncviewer in scaled mode. Not as elegant, not as fast, but will work on ALL systems.

0.9 is a rewrite, and avoids the problems of a confined mouse by defining new resolutions to the VGA output, then scaling for display on the LCD. It's been tested in gnome2 and gnome3 as well as the MATE and Cinnamon desktops.

1.1 fixed issue when returning to "default" resolution, where mouse was not confined to screen edges.

This is a known issue, not with the script, but with the latest 'xrandr' package. This package can do many things in managing screens, scaling is one of them. Apparently to fix a different situation, it was changed "to keep the pointer in-bounds". But for the type of scaling my script is doing, it's now broken.

That its why I wrote the second script newrez-z which your download also provided. It's a little less elegant and and a little slower, but guaranteed to work. Hopefully the xrandr developers will get the problem fixed soon!

This is a known issue, not with the script, but with the latest 'xrandr' package. This package can do many things in managing screens, scaling is one of them. Apparently to fix a different situation, it was changed "to keep the pointer in-bounds". But for the type of scaling my script is doing, it's now broken.

That its why I wrote the second script newrez-z which your download also provided. It's a little less elegant and and a little slower, but guaranteed to work. Hopefully the xrandr developers will get the problem fixed soon!

This is a known issue, not with the script, but with the latest 'xrandr' package. This package can do many things in managing screens, scaling is one of them. Apparently to fix a different situation, it was changed "to keep the pointer in-bounds". But for the type of scaling my script is doing, it's now broken.

That its why I wrote the second script newrez-z which your download also provided. It's a little less elegant and and a little slower, but guaranteed to work. Hopefully the xrandr developers will get the problem fixed soon!

Let me know how the other script works for you.

Possible Solution Found

Hi, guys. I really loved this app but with all the new OSes it's unusable and the newrez-v fix don't work fast enough for my little netbook here. So I searched the net for another solution and I found SOMETHING. But I have no idea how to do it. It's a PATCH. So please anyone some help if you'd like. Thank you.

Re: Re: Possible Solution Found

It seems that this isn't a patch but rather the whole source already done. I have trouble compiling this stuff although it has autogen script. It complains about some SHA1 stuff and I really don't know what dev package does it need to compile corectly in this part of the configuration.

NOTE THAT ANY COMMENTS BEFORE THIS ONE RELATE TO OLDER VERSIONS OF THIS SCRIPT!

Newrez

Fantastic ! After a look some months ago on your script, i can see that it's working perfectly now ! There is many bugs reports about this, and patch to apply to randr or suggestion about downgrading Xorg, but your script is dealing with the resolution and mouse panning problem perfectly... Thanks !
The only weird thing is that i don't manage to launch it thru a script as before ?

I am glad this is working for you!!

The bug reports and patch for xrandr are because they added a new "feature" to prevent the mouse pointer from moving beyond the edge of the screen. This was so the pointer would never travel past the edge and be difficult to find.

This feature did not account for scaled screens, therefore it was also a "bug". The problem was that on a scaled screen, the mouse was constrained to the hardware resolution.

The "fix" was to add the new (higher) resolution to the VGA port, then set VGA as the primary display, and finally to set the LCD as a scaled mirror.

TO USE THIS NEW VERSION IN A SCRIPT:
In your script (or from a command line in terminal), you can execute a command like "newrez 1280x800" or "newrez default".

If this does not work for you, please send me another message. Tell me what version of Linux you are running.

I am glad this is working for you!!

The bug reports and patch for xrandr are because they added a new "feature" to prevent the mouse pointer from moving beyond the edge of the screen. This was so the pointer would never travel past the edge and be difficult to find.

This feature did not account for scaled screens, therefore it was also a "bug". The problem was that on a scaled screen, the mouse was constrained to the hardware resolution.

The "fix" was to add the new (higher) resolution to the VGA port, then set VGA as the primary display, and finally to set the LCD as a scaled mirror.

TO USE THIS NEW VERSION IN A SCRIPT:
In your script (or from a command line in terminal), you can execute a command like "newrez 1280x800" or "newrez default".

If this does not work for you, please send me another message. Tell me what version of Linux you are running.

-- Marc

Re: Re: Newrez

Yep thats what i tried but it doesn't work. The result is "command not found" on newrez. Alone, with a value or default.
Used on a Ubuntu 12.04 32 bits with Unity, kernel 3.2.0-38, on a netbook.
Thanks for you work

Simple problem, two possible solutions.

The cause: though you have downloaded the newrez file, it not in your "search path". Therefore the shell can't find it. This would be true of ANY script you install or write.

Solution 1: execute it using the full path to the command where it is located, as in "~/.gnome2/nautilus-scripts/newrez 1280x800"

Solution 2: make a copy (or a link) of the newrez script into /usr/local/bin (which would require sudo and would make it available to all users) or into ~/bin (which does not require sudo and will make available to just you).

Simple problem, two possible solutions.

The cause: though you have downloaded the newrez file, it not in your "search path". Therefore the shell can't find it. This would be true of ANY script you install or write.

Solution 1: execute it using the full path to the command where it is located, as in "~/.gnome2/nautilus-scripts/newrez 1280x800"

Solution 2: make a copy (or a link) of the newrez script into /usr/local/bin (which would require sudo and would make it available to all users) or into ~/bin (which does not require sudo and will make available to just you).

Simple problem, two possible solutions.

The cause: though you have downloaded the newrez file, it not in your "search path". Therefore the shell can't find it. This would be true of ANY script you install or write.

Solution 1: execute it using the full path to the command where it is located, as in "~/.gnome2/nautilus-scripts/newrez 1280x800"

Solution 2: make a copy (or a link) of the newrez script into /usr/local/bin (which would require sudo and would make it available to all users) or into ~/bin (which does not require sudo and will make available to just you).

Have fun!

Perfect

Simple problem indeed, it works when indicating the complete path.
Your script works well with the indicator ScaleRes also, you can change the resolution with one clic in the status bar... Perfect thanks again

Also -- what distro and version are you using and what video card and driver?

-- Marc

Re: Re: Not working

The crash seems to occur when the pointer leaves the original area of the screen, but I can't test now as I have important things open. The OS is Ubuntu 12.04. I don't know my video card or driver, this is a netbook.

Interesting, because an "original resolution" issue (being trapped in the original screen size) was the issue that this release of newrez was to fix.

The command "lspci | grep VGA" will show what video card you have, though since you're unsure I doubt that a vendor-supplied driver (like those for ATI and nVidia) is the cause.

I have not tested on the latest Ubuntu, so I'll try that from this end. Had this worked for you before? Your reference to newrez-v implied you've been a user for a while. Did this breakage occur after an upgrade?

-- Marc

Re: Re: Re: Re: Not working

Actually you're wrong there - I've never used newrez before as far as I remember, but I learned about it from an (apparently outdated) article which mentioned newrez-v, plus I looked through the comments a bit for solutions. Also, slight nitpick, 12.04 (The version of Ubuntu I'm using) is not the latest, but the last long term support.

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